Former NBA great and current TNT analyst Charles Barkley was a guest on the Dan Patrick Show on Wednesday morning, and discussed the widespread angst over Panthers quarterback Cam Newton.

In discussing Newton’s “exuberance,” Barkley said that he thought it may date back to his college playing days at Auburn. As a fellow Tiger, Barkley joked that even if accusations that the school paid Newton to join the program were true, he wouldn’t care.

“As I’ve always said, if we gave Cam Newton $200,000 to come to Auburn, boy that was a good investment,” Barkley said.

Barkley also went on to say that he thinks the media is making Newton’s Super Bowl 50 matchup against Peyton Manning and the Broncos into a racial issue.

There is a racial component, to be honest with you. I hate that, because we as black people got way more important things to worry about than stuff like that. And ESPN’s already started their crap about ‘black vs. white,’ ‘good vs. evil,’ and I know a lot of those fools over there have got radio talk shows, but you can just see they’re framing this narrative. Black against white, good against evil. It really annoys the hell out of me. They really can’t just appreciate the greatness of Peyton and clearly Cam is on the track to become one of the greatest players ever ... that’s the problem when you have two weeks in between games. They’re both great players, they’re both great guys, but a lot of these fools on ESPN have got radio shows. The best way to make talk radio good is to make it racial, because you bring in every fool in the world when you bring up race.

Newton’s Panthers and Manning’s Broncos will play at 6:30 p.m. ET on Feb. 7.

- Kenny Ducey

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